The Colbert Report completed its year last night, and at the end of the show Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, Sean Lennon and the Harlem Gospel Ghoir finished up Colbert’s Christmas Carol Week with a cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Check it out below.

One of the more innovative “new” artists, Dan Deacon (and his large entourage), appeared for the first time on national TV last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live.   Check out Deacon and crew killin’ on True Thrush off of his phenomenal album, America.   Deacon added to the proceedings by lighting up the crowd with his own audience-participation smart-phone app, which you can hear/see more about after the Kimmel performance.

Another band lighting up the Best Albums of 2012 lists is (yet another) Brooklyn-band DIIV, with their album Oshin (you know, like the sea).  Check out the band below playing Doused from the album last night on the Letterman Show.  Awkward and repetitive.  Kinda like us.  We like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHIeqrG5-KQ&feature=em-uploademail

LA sister-band HAIM is receiving deserved praise on this and the other side of the “Pond.” Check out the band on BBC’s Radio 1 performing their strong song Don’t Save Me below.  After, watch them ably rock Fleetwood Mac’s quintessential blues-rocker, Oh Well HERE.  Make sure to catch ’em in Cali when they come home.

At last night’s Concert for Sandy Relief, Coldplay’s Chris Martin performed a winning set and brought out R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe for a duet on Losing My Religion.  Watch below beginning at 1:40 (after Blake Lively’s talk) as Martin performs a captivating solo acoustic Viva la Vida, followed by Losing My Religion with Stipe, capped off by an apropos Us Against the World done solo by Martin on piano.  There are a lot of Coldplay/Chris Martin haters out there, but you won’t find any here.  To the contrary.

Each night this week Stephen Colbert is covering classic Christmas carols with his guests.  Last night Michael Stipe (doubling up on his appearance at the Concert for Sandy Relief), and actor Mandy Patinkin joined the show’s host for Good King Wenceslas.  Tonight Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples and Sean Lennon will join Colbert.  Set your DVRs.

The who’s who of music (forgive native son Bon Jovi’s inclusion–gads) came to NYC last night to play the Concert For Sandy Relief.  The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, et. al made it a musical night to remember.  The night was chock full of goodness, perhaps capped off by a reunited Nirvana (with Paul McCartney acquitting himself incredibly well on lead vocals and Bo Diddley-guitar riffs).  Check ’em out below playing Cut Me Some Slack.  Dave Grohl beat the crap out of his drums (shocker), long hair flailing, veloured Krist Novocelik held down the bottom line (tandem-ing well with McCartney at one point), and an ever-smiling Pat Smear filled in ably on rhythm guitar.  Great stuff.  Oh, and if you can, please go donate to the Sandy Relief effort HERE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIWdotxMKC4&feature=player_embedded

Australia’s Atlas Genius recently signed to Warner Bros. and appeared on The Jimmy Kimmel Live last night to play Back Seat and Trojan off their debut Warner’s release When It Was Now.  The band is another bloggist-band (we wrote about ’em in July) done well.  Check out their tight-nit, pop-rock sound below (and particularly in the last minute of Backseat wherein singer Keith Jeffrey kicks the sound up a notch with some Talking Heads-ish guitar).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiPASMjDPyQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuHsSvZmtsI&feature=em-uploademail

The multi-gifted Grizzly Bear showed up on Letterman Show last night to perform their song Yet Again off of their album Shields (which is showing up incessantly on the Best of 2012 lists).  As you will hear, three to four months of playing the new songs on tour has enabled the band to bring out the best in those songs.  This performance of Yet Again is a quantum leap forward compared to when we heard it live in October in Oakland.  Watch them below absolutely mauling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR3U9vCbLAU&feature=em-uploademail

Back in the desperate-for-rock, pre-punk days of 1976 we played Graham Parker & the Rumour’s Howling Wind and Heat Treatment (both produced by Nick Lowe) albums to death.  Sounding like a mix of Jagger and Van Morrison, Graham Parker brought a powerful grit and ferocity to his driving, passion-filled songs, and the Rumour was a tightly knit and phenomenally skilled ensemble.  Lyrically, Parker fit us like a glove with his sarcasm and vitriol, not to mention his confessional ballads.  Unfortunately, Parker and the band broke up in 1981 after putting out their mostly highly-regarded album, Squeezing Out Sparks.  And unfortunately for Parker, the incomparably talented Elvis Costello came along in 1977 in a similar vein and eventually eclipsed Parker (who continued to record without the band in the ’90s).  Parker & the Rumour are still held in high regard, however, and championed by many (see below) as one of the best bands ever.

Now Parker and the band have unexpectedly reunited (including Brinsley Schwarz) and recorded a great new album entitled Three Chords Good.  The reunion album was released in November in advance of Judd Apatow’s This Is Forty movie, in which Graham Parker & the Rumour provide a plot point.  As a result of the push by their fan Apatow, Parker and band have made it into the mainstream spotlight for the first time in decades.  Watch them below on Conan last night performing a beauty (Long Emotional Ride) off their brand new album Three Chords Good.  After, check out a relic from ’77.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtVKd7wz0Uk&feature=em-uploademail